The Last Minute

by Jeff Abbott

  From the wall Jack Ming’s face looked out at me from a scattering of party pictures, the kind taken by a pro photographer at college events. His smile looked pained, as though the party wasn’t quite his deal. His hair was longer and his face was fuller. His friends often had buzzed smiles and protective arms around Jack’s slender shoulders. He had a shy but sincere grin.

  He was just a kid. Just a kid I was supposed to kill.

  The apartment was cool, but a finger of humidity slid down my spine as I walked into the bathroom. I checked the tub. Droplets still beaded the surface. The bathroom was connected to his room. No reason for anyone else to shower in here.

  Jack Ming had been here. Recently. Within the past hour. I might only have missed him, arriving at my perch at the sushi bar, by minutes.

  Daniel could die because I’d missed him.

  Dust, a light coating, touched his bedroom desk. It didn’t look like he’d set anything down in here. I could see the barest indentation on the bed where he had sat.

  He’d come here, he’d left. Without his mother. Had he said his goodbyes? Was she not helping him? Your wanted son reappears, on the run, and within an hour the reunion is done and he’s fled and Mom’s in a limo with a driver who looks like he used to train boxers for the Russian Olympic team.

  What had Jack Ming needed here? Something more than saying farewell to his mother?

  I went back to her bedroom and made a fast but thorough search. I found nothing of interest: Sandra Ming had stripped her life down to the barest essentials. There was a small, elegant phone by the bedside. I picked it up and hit star-69. The phone rang.

  On the fourth ring, someone picked up. But there was only silence.

  I waited. The other side waited. I could hear a soft, soft breathing.

  I took a jump: “Yes, I’m calling on behalf of Mrs. Ming.”

  The other side hung up.

  Who would she call when her son arrives, out of the mists for a presumably unexpected reunion? Was that who had dispatched the limo driver?

  I went into the study. Jack Ming’s father, Russell, had gotten his start in the madhouse of Hong Kong real estate and then set up a property development company here. Framed on the walls were photos of him with other famous developers, New York celebrities, smiling politicians. Several pictures of him and Jack, his arm around his son. People sure liked to put their arms on Jack’s shoulders. Maybe he was one of those people who inspired a need to protect, to shelter. I tried not to dwell on those pictures. He couldn’t be someone’s son, not like Daniel was. He just had to stay a target, faceless, inhuman. I hadn’t wanted to know about his life, just how to end it.

  There were no pictures of Mr. and Mrs. Ming together. The absence of a picture is also worth a thousand words. A thin sheen of dust on the desk had been disturbed. It didn’t seem to be used by Mrs. Ming; there were no papers or files on its surface. A screen saver danced across the monitor. I looked at the keyboard. Dust on some keys, not on others. Someone had used this keyboard for the first time in a long while. Jack.

  I moved the mouse and the computer woke up. It wasn’t passworded. The screen background was a picture of Jack and his father. A click gave me the most recently used applications: Word, Firefox, Excel. I started them, went to the histories of each, opened the most recent files. The Excel spreadsheets were over a year old, and had been created by Russell Ming as part of his business. The Word documents were also all Russell Ming’s—mostly related to his business but one that was a letter to his son Jack.

  Reading this felt like peering into a grave. I didn’t want to see it but you couldn’t help it; it was like a diary falling open to a page.

  Dear Jack: First of all, you know this, but it bears saying. I love you. There is nothing you can do, or could ever do, that will lessen my love for you. I want you to tell me what it is that is troubling you so. And I want the truth, as much as it could hurt, I want to know what you think you’ve done. I want you to tell me. Not your mother. Let’s have this be between us. Because I don’t think that she will

  And there the letter stopped, as though he’d decided not to continue with an unspoken, unspooled thought. What had he not wanted to say about his lovely diplomat wife? Did the heart attack take before he’d finished the sentence? I checked the date on the document. The day that he’d died. These might have been Russell Ming’s final writings. Or maybe this was when Jack came into the room, and it was better to talk to his son than to write him a letter. Daniel, if I find you, I promise my last word to you will not be an unfinished sentence.

  I checked the browser history. The last website visited had been about a property in Brooklyn, in Williamsburg. It was on Ming’s company website. Seven commercial properties were listed and this one was empty, unrented. The browser showed the previous six entries were all for other Ming properties. Jack had checked all his father’s holdings, found one that wasn’t in use.

  Maybe a good place for him to hide? I memorized the address. It was the only vacant property belonging to the management company.

  I started to search the desk. Very little here: Russell Ming’s expired passport, pens and pencils, a legal pad with a faded pencil sketch that said Jack’s options. 1. Surrender to the police 2. Let Jack… and then nothing else written, as though the thought had been interrupted, like the Word document. In one drawer was a nest of keys, with tags on them, addresses marked in a careful blue pen. I searched through them. The keys for the Brooklyn property were gone.

  An empty building, where he controlled access. The perfect place for him to surrender to the CIA and make his deal with August. He’d come home for the keys.

  I looked through the rest of Russell Ming’s computer quickly. Jack Ming was a hacker, the kind of kid whose fingertips felt lonely without a keyboard. He had evidence against Novem Soles, and maybe he’d backed it up here. But in the machine’s history there was no sign of new files, or of downloaded or uploaded files on this system, no emails sent. He hadn’t even bothered to clean out the browser history.

  Maybe—a thought rumbled in my ear. Maybe what he’s got on Novem Soles isn’t on a computer. Maybe it’s physical. Something he’s carrying. Maybe a hacker who knows just how vulnerable most computers are won’t trust this information to a machine.

  I had to find him. Now.

  He’d taken the keys to the Brooklyn building. Maybe that’s where he intended to hide, maybe where he would go right this moment.

  27

  Morris County, New Jersey

  IF THERE WAS SOMETHING WORSE than feeling helpless, it was feeling useless.

  Leonie gripped the steering wheel as she followed the limo. Sam had found Jin Ming, or, rather, Jack Ming, and she had done, what? Frittered her time away trying to delve into databases, bribing hackers to unlock the secrets of the man who had snuck into the country. Sat typing while these murderous freaks had her child, and… Now what? She didn’t know how to tail anyone. She kept expecting the limo to pull over to the side, the driver to watch her glide past with a knowing sneer, that he knew she was there and that he could lose her at any time. Or worse. Maybe he would kill her to protect Mrs. Ming.

  Was he CIA? Was he Nine Suns? If he was, why didn’t he just hand Mrs. Ming over to her and Sam?

  The limo headed west, into suburban New Jersey along Highway 80, finally turning north on 206 toward Lake Hopatcong. The rain parted like a curtain; the sky showed elusive patches of gray-blue, weak sunlight fell in rays among the breaks like a handful of sand sifting through fingers. She kept two cars between her and the limo, and every time another car tried to edge in she would grit her teeth and stand her ground and think, God, don’t let me lose them. She nearly wrecked twice driving through Parsippany, cars trying to get across lanes and her not yielding an inch. Her hands trembled on the wheel.

  The limo turned off the highway into a stretch of parkland. She hung back; it was more dangerous to get too close to the limo. She craved a cigarette.

  The limo
whipped around a turn, shaded by oaks. Signs indicated this was private property and warned against trespassing in the strictest terms. She drove past and if the limo driver was watching her, was suspicious of her, he would think he was wrong.

  She hoped.

  She pulled the car off to the side of the road, nosing it into a thick grove of oaks. She could wait for Sam. That would be best.

  And if the driver’s job was to eliminate Mrs. Ming? Or to question her about Jack’s whereabouts? Then all was lost. She and Sam had to find him first, had to eliminate him before he could betray Novem Soles. She shivered.

  She tried calling Sam. The call rolled to voicemail. She told him where she was and that she was going to follow the road the limo had taken on foot. She kept the tremble out of her voice.

  If you stay in the car your baby could die. Don’t be afraid. You can do this. It’s up to you.

  And a strength flooded her. She could do this.

  She got out of the car and she started to walk through the dense woods. She could see the thin line of paved road the limo had taken. She reached a fence, eight feet tall. Another big NO TRESPASSING sign. She clambered over the fence, using the sign for leverage. She dropped down into high grass.

  She ran parallel to the road, staying in the heavy growth of trees. Mud sucked at her shoes; the air felt stitched with the damp. Rain, lingering on leaves, fell onto her shoulders and her head.

  The road turned again. She climbed over some rain-slick rocks, feeling breathless. She would see what the driver and Mrs. Ming were doing. If she could she would get the woman away. Because if Mrs. Ming was the key to knowing what Jack was doing next, then she must belong to her and Sam alone.

  Nature, she thought. The air smelled heavy with moss and an underlying scent of heat-hurried decay. It wasn’t so bad out here. Maybe she should get away from the computer more. She imagined going for a long hike—although she hadn’t gone hiking since long childhood walks—with Taylor secure on her back, the sun warm on their faces. Not in Vegas. Too hot. She could take Taylor to Lake Tahoe for a long weekend, soon, when all this was over. Stroll in the shade of the trees, point out the flowers, imprint good memories. Do the things she’d said she’d do if she ever had a child… if she ever had another chance.

  Grief prickled her face.

  You can do this.

  In the distance Leonie heard a woman scream, short and sharp. It was as though the wind carried the noise, dropped it into her lap like a gift.

  For a moment she froze. Then she bolted, dodging through the trees. She slipped and skidded down a muddy incline. She’d slid down to the road, which curved hard and fed directly into an old house ahead of her. She saw the limo parked there, and no other car. The house needed paint, it needed a carpenter: odd impressions that flickered across her mind. Between her and the house there was a big square of clear lawn she would have to cross.

  No sign of the driver, or of Sandra Ming.

  She ran across the lawn. She went onto the porch, trying to be quiet. The boards creaked slightly, and every moan of the wood felt like a knife in the skin. She kept waiting for the driver to explode out of the front door. But the door stayed shut. She pressed an ear to a window. Listened. Heard nothing but the rasp of her own breathing.

  Sam, please, where are you? Please get here. For a moment she thought: maybe whoever this is, CIA or whoever, maybe they got Sam. They left someone behind at the Mings to wait for Jack and they’ve killed Sam.

  Maybe it’s just me left to save my kid. Me alone. You’ve gotten through worse, she told herself.

  Curtains, thick, streaked with age, blocked her view through the window. The porch felt exposed. It offered little cover.

  Weird, she thought, I’m thinking like a soldier.

  She crept around the corner, staying on the porch, toward the detached garage. She stayed low and moved quickly and she was so proud of herself that for a moment she didn’t feel when the Taser needles hit her, but the charge made her dance off the porch, tumbling into the neglected rosebushes, the thorns pricking her face, the bolt surging pain into her bones like water flooding a pipe.

  She turned, saw the limo driver thumbing the controls for another hit.

  The last thing she smelled was the rose petals crushed under her body, like a grandmother smell, her mouth twisting, trying to scream for Sam to help her.

  28

  East 59th Street, Manhattan

  I RAN BACK DOWN TO THE LOBBY. The doorman stood by the glass entrance and when he saw me exit off the elevator—carrying a laptop—he stormed back through the door. Well, stormed rather politely.

  “Sir, I know you needed to recuperate, but this is a private building and—”

  I punched him, hard, one smart blow in the tender spot between the edge of the jaw and the lip. He staggered back and I hammered a fist into his gut and then into the vulnerable joining of neck and nerve.

  “Sorry,” I said. “Really, mister.” He folded. I knelt, went through his pockets and found a passkey. I stood and hurried down the hallway. Saw a door marked SECURITY. I keyed the door with the passkey. A rented cop stood before a set of monitors. He charged at me, going for his holster. I knocked him down and I took the gun from him. I told him to sit down. He obeyed.

  “Turn around. And, no, I’m not going to kill you.” I slammed the gun into the back of his head, three times, and he went down. I went to the security recording. Rewound. I saw myself enter, I saw Mrs. Ming exit. I saw people come and go, as fast and as energetically as if they had espresso in their blood. Then him.

  Jack Ming, leaving, alone, practically running out of the building. At the exit he turned left.

  A bit more rewinding and I saw him enter the building with his mother. This I played slowly.

  On another monitor a woman got off the elevator and screamed when she saw the fallen doorman. Okay, I was officially out of time, thank you for playing.

  Footage of Jack Ming, walking inside the building with his mother. The body language was clear. The kid was anxious. He was holding two grocery bags and he kept swinging them over his feet. A small knapsack sat on his back that he’d left with as well. He kept glancing about, not even looking at his mother, while they waited for the elevator.

  And Mrs. Ming. You could tell this was not a happy reunion. She was not touching her child. She was not looking at her long-departed, wanted-by-the-police kid. She was looking at the tile floor, and her watch. Did she have an appointment to keep? She looked as though she wanted to wriggle free of her own skin and slither away. She kept shaking the rain from her umbrella. It was a constructive action, something to do other than watch her kid.

  I stopped the digital recording. I erased it, from Jack’s appearance to now, and then I powered down the cameras. There was no point in me being remembered either.

  I hurried out the door, past the woman crouching by the unconscious doorman. She had a cell phone pressed to her ear. She called to me to help her but I ignored her.

  I let the traffic carry me along. I wanted out of this neighborhood now. I went down to the 59th Street subway station, rode the train to Grand Central, got off. I found a store in the terminal and put the laptop in a knapsack I’d bought.

  I tried Leonie on the cell phone; there was no answer. I didn’t like that at all. Maybe she didn’t like to talk on the phone while she drove but I figured that for me she’d make an exception.

  For a moment I felt torn. I had the address of an empty building where my target would be, and if you’re planning to kill someone an empty building in New York City is convenient. But having Leonie tag after the limo driver felt like a mistake now. Jack had left his mother behind, and maybe she knew where he was, but maybe she didn’t. I had an address, an actual, throbbing clue, and Leonie could be off with our car on a fool’s errand. I stepped back out onto the street, trying to decide what to do.

  The wind broke the rain clouds into jagged curls of gray; the sun flooded the sky, weak as tea.

 
The iPhone rang inside my pocket. The phone that Anna had given me.

  “Yes?”

  “Sam?” Leonie. Her voice tight and stiff, rattled by fear. There is a certain pronunciation made when the lips are bruised; you don’t quite form your words right.

  “Yes?”

  “Oh, God, I messed up, I messed up, please…”

  And then the limo driver’s voice. “You. You sent this woman to follow me. Who are you?”

  “Don’t hurt her.”

  “If you don’t want her hurt, then you come get her.”

  No. Not now. I had the address where Jack most likely had run. I had Jack Ming in my grasp.

  What would you do to save your child? she’d asked me.

  A choice. What would I do to save my child? Would I sacrifice this woman who was basically a stranger? A little, awful voice inside me said, You don’t need her. You found Jack, not her. What good is she, what has she done to help save your kid? It was from a dark corner deep in the well of my soul, but when you are in a battle for your child’s life darkness stands close to you, whispers in your ear. Nine Suns wasn’t going to give me Daniel, or give Leonie her daughter, if Jack Ming breathed long enough to turn himself into the CIA.

  “I strongly suggest that you listen to me, mister. Retrieve your bitch. Or I’ll cut her throat.”

  In the background I could hear Leonie, gasping, saying, “Don’t, don’t!”

  I couldn’t tell if she was talking to me or to the driver. Then a piercing scream.

  “Where are you?” I managed to say.

  He gave me an address and directions to Morris County, in northern New Jersey.

  I clicked off the phone. If I made the wrong choice I could be abandoning either a woman I barely knew, who seemed to hold me in contempt, to death, or my own child.